Shocking accidents reveal how vehicles have been illegally converted from panel vans.

An estimated 3,000 ambulances transporting patients on South Africa’s roads – and at least 1,333 – are illegally converted Toyota Quantum panel vans that are not allowed to carry more than three passengers – all three of whom should be seated in the front. But provincial health departments are acquiring these structurally unsafe ambulances through official tender processes without realising they will never pass the stringent safety measures of the original manufacturer, Toyota Japan.

The reason is that the panel vans are designed and built to transport parcels, not people. There is even a sticker in the back compartment of the Quantum panel van warning: “Do not put your feet or seat on this platform. It is only for parcels.”

Truant Tshwane MMC says there are plans to rehabilitate crippled Wonderboom National Airport after favoured managing company bails out.

Since Noseweek’s report about the mismanagement of Wonderboom National Airport that has been run into the ground, things have unravelled at speed, with several new developments including requests for the Mayor of Tshwane to intervene urgently. Wonderboom was once South Africa’s third-busiest airport with an average of 220 planes landing and taking off each day – a number that has reduced to just 60 a day.

Liquidated pig farm lands those involved in the swill after undervaluation had been placed in final liquidation.

This is all covered in court records spread over several years and in multiple courts from Paulpietersburg to Pretoria and Pietermaritzburg.

However, the Achilles heel of this contrived liquidation was that while the Penvaan Group of Companies owned the businesses on the farm, the land was owned by the Penvaan Property Trust (PPT). Ironically the trust was set up by Thomas in better days, in such a way as to protect the land from just the type of seizure he was himself now trying to orchestrate through the liquidation.

Numerous allegations of fraud by duped investors in Mauritius beach hotel project spur on authorities to investigate.

Remember the high-flying Mossel Bay woman who made promises of prosperity and an idyllic island existence to credulous friends and family who took share options in her hotel project in Mauritius (nose233)? Well, eight months on she is still at it, making threats and/or promises to those who dare to question her about the project. But there’s a glimmer of light on the horizon.

The Hawks, the Reserve Bank and SARS are now queuing up to interrogate Miranda Hartzenberg-Meyer (or variations of that name: with or without a hyphen, or Meyer Hartzenberg, or pla

Newspaper mogul throws a Survé ball at his news agency employees.

At the end of October, Iqbal Survé will close down the domestic newswire service of the African News Agency (ANA) he founded four years ago when the South African Press Association (Sapa) collapsed. The demise of ANA is a telling footnote in Survé’s desperate fight against creditors, fiscal authorities and the Mpati Commission of Inquiry into the Public Investment Corporation (PIC). His aides have been spinning it with claims that the company is to be transformed into a “content curation and syndication platform with global reach”.

Whether Survé truly believes that the venture can successfully compete with Bloomberg and Reuters, without producing a paragraph of original content, is moot. Nobody else does.

Prof Kelly Chibale talks about the bonds he has formed through his illustrious career which began in an impoverished Zambian township.

"I see molecules everywhere – in hair, in clothes, in everything. It fascinates me that you can look at a molecule’s chemical structure and modify the bonds and structures to modify the properties of molecules. Then those new structures can be used for something terrible, like bombs, or for something wonderful, like foods and medicines.”

He gently patted the crimson abrasions on his cheeks, wiping some blood on his overall, and explained: “There was a first klap, ‘Ker-twa!’  Then a second! Then a third!” Jan’s re-enactment ...